


Letters to Sarah

by thatluckyrabbit



Category: Casper (1995)
Genre: Angst, Death of a loved one, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Past Character Death, Regrets, Secret Affair, Secret Relationship, death of a child, past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1287685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatluckyrabbit/pseuds/thatluckyrabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He loved her with all the passion of a secret lover, and with the romance of a first true love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letters to Sarah

**Author's Note:**

> My girlfriend and I LOVE the idea of Stretch being Casper's dad, as in we like to think he slept with Casper's mom. But we think they did love each other... even though she stayed married to his brother, J.T.

 

He loved her with all the passion of a secret lover, and with the romance of a first true love.  
  
Stretch, looking back now, realized he didn't know what true love was. It took him a while to realize that Sarah had been—and still was—his true love. And she had loved him back. She'd even said so, that she wouldn't have slept with anyone else except for someone that she loved. And for a time she had loved his brother, her husband, the one she was married to. But Jack, now Stretch, had been something different. He was adventurous, witty, and didn't take shit. But he could be soft and kind when he wanted to be, and he'd always been kind to her. He loved her from the beginning, and she didn't love him until her inventor husband left for a few months, leaving their sexual tension to build until it became apparent that nothing could keep than from each other, or the bed.  
  
But that was the problem. As far as Stretch had been concerned, Sarah was his, and he was Sarah's. Just between the two of them, that had been the case. When J.T. came back from his long trip, everything went back to normal in terms of how things were before. As far as everyone else was concerned, Sarah was the other McFadden wife.  
  
And he would wish that he had gotten to her first before his brother had.  
  
It didn't matter now, though. The regret was still there, but now... now he was still there. He might have been dead too, but Sarah...  
  
Sarah was just... gone. When she died, her soul left. He figured he would have been her unfinished business, or better yet, their son would have been her unfinished business. But he remembered that Sarah was religious, always had been...  
  
But even her religion couldn't keep her away from him.  
  
And, as if payback from whatever deity existed (he didn't know or care which one), her religion couldn't keep her alive. Even when he was by her bedside, their son in the arms of his brother, Stretch had prayed. He wasn't a believer, not anymore ore, but he prayed to God that Sarah would live.  
  
In the letters he writes to Sarah everyday for the past fifty years, one of them recalled when he had begged for God to be merciful.  
  
 _'You can't die,' I remember begging, 'You need to stay. For our son. For me.' And I prayed and prayed to God that you would survive the infection,  and the fever that came with it, but you didn't. I never believed in God before, but when he let you die, I didn't forgive him. I don't blame Casper for your death, II could never blame him. I blame God. Maybe that's selfish of me, I don't know and I don't care... All I know is that you're gone and I miss you. It kills me that you're not here to see our son grow._  
  
If his faith in God hadn't been shattered then, it had certainly been shattered in the winter of 1907.  
  
 _Casper got sick over Christmas. I don't know what happened, but the doctors are saying he won't make it another week. At this point I know he won't make it either. But I don't know if I can survive losing him too... I can't do this. I can't lose him too._  
  
For all everyone knew, including Stinkie and Fatso (who were once Don and Frankie), Casper was J.T.'s son. Even little Casper himself grew up not knowing the truth. But in a way, Casper had always been closer to Stretch. J.T. had always been too busy, and Stretch... well, knowing what he knew, he was there for every step of his son's life. He'd been there when he said his first word, when he took his first step, his first day of school.... everything. And with each letter to Sarah (letters he never sent out; they were always kept in a box and there were three of them now in the attic), they grew shorter and shorter, now mostly talking about their little boy.  
  
The last one was about around the time of the end of the year.  
  
 _Our baby is gone... and I don't know how I'll be able to get through this. You know the worst part? Everyone is comforting my brother, giving him their condolences, when it was my son, our son, that died. He was never J.T.'s son. He was always mine. And now he's gone. I couldn't even force myself to go the funeral. I went to yours, but I just... no casket should be the small, especially Casper's._  
  
 _It shouldn't have gone this way... I was supposed to protect him. And I failed. Just like I failed you. I failed you both._  
  
He never held any ill-fated thoughts of hia youngest brother, the one lucky enough to have been married to Sarah and the one able to say, out loud, that he was Casper's father (even if it was far from the truth). In fact Stretch had always been envious of the life J.T. had had.  
  
He was a great inventor, with a beautiful wife and a son on the way. He could at least say it out loud, and he did—proudly so. Stretch, however, had to keep his pride in. That Sarah loved him, not J.T., and that the baby kicking and moving in Sarah's belly was actually his, not J.T.'s.  
  
 _I guess some secrets will always die with the grave._  
  
 _I hope I can be with you again, one day... I miss you and Casper. I miss you both._

As an afterthought, in the last letter he had written, Stretch, then as Jack, wrote,

~~_Please come back to me._ ~~

but he crossed it out. He couldn't ask for something he knew wouldn't happen.

But he couldn't help but ask anyway. When he died nearly two year later, his soul heading back to Whipstaff with his two brothers, Casper had been there waiting for them. J.T., even in his grief-stricken state, had been right when he said Casper's ghost had been wandering around Whipstaff.

In a way, one of his prayers had been answered. At least he had his son, their son, back. 


End file.
